![]() ![]() I watched him with both curiosity and trepidation he’d get back to the rear after we’d been out in the field a week or more and relax with booze, poker, cigarettes, sometimes a cigar. What was he about? He never hinted in all the time I was around him. And as he had clearly once been a handsome man, the scars perversely heightened his visage into a Phantom of the Opera echo - a man distorted, perhaps, by anger or revenge, or really a question mark. You hear things in the army, as in all society, and some kind of narrative emerges in this case, the story was that he’d been literally shot or sustained shrapnel in the face, skull, head, requiring a major reconstruction job as the scar branched deeply around his eye, nose, and cheek even his lips were affected. ![]() He was a great soldier, probably on his second or third tour - but why? Why would he come back after a facial wound like he had? I never asked, and he never told. Whereas some of us were not looking forward to such an encounter, the thought excited Barnes. Having reported the incident, and stripping the dead men, he soon had us under way, no credit taken, looking for further action ahead considering there had already been contact, the likelihood of more that day was in the air. But Barnes was cool, so cool, no big displays ever. Most of us were pretty excited whenever we actually, but rarely, saw the enemy, much less killed them. “Viet Cong, young men carelessly eating their breakfast, never suspecting the Americans would be out so early. ![]()
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